THE OUTRAGE MACHINES DON’T WANT IT DONE “BEST,” THEY WANT IT DONE THEIR WAY: Washington Examiner: Government is not best done in a state of outrage.

Some of the worst policy changes in modern history have happened when lawmakers have let emotions and anecdotes dominate debate rather than facts and figures — actual evidence. Consider the short-lived “assault weapons” ban of 1994, nearly any law named after a deceased child, or President Trump enacting steel and aluminum tariffs. . . .

The murder of school children is a terrible calamity, but schools overall are incredibly safe, both in terms of mass shootings and of everyday crime. The experiences of students traumatized at a mass shooting need to be heard, but neither their ordeal nor their fear and anger turn them into policy experts. Passion should not be allowed to trump reason. Anecdotes should not displace facts. The perspectives of victims are important and should be heard, but students deserve sympathy, not carte blanche to dictate the trampling on fellow citizens’ rights.

There’s an instructive parallel in the judicial system. We entrust decisions on sentencing criminals to neutral judges, not to victims, their families, or their outraged neighbors. It’s the difference between a court and a lynch mob. . . .

James Madison, who drafted the Constitution, said the six-year term of senators was intended to ensure that the Senate proceeded “with more coolness, with more system, and with more wisdom, than the popular branch [the House of Representatives].” While the news cycle changes daily, the issues addressed by our Congress should not.

The outrage machines don’t mind lynch mobs, either, so long as the right people are being lynched.